Although the control means of the present invention may be used in various kinds of applications, it is particularly suited to an application wherein a web is selectively fed to a web severing or cutting station from either one of a pair of web supply rolls. The web not being severed is partially withdrawn from the cutting station to avoid severing a thin portion or sliver from the lead end thereof during the cutting of the other web.
More specifically, the present invention is adapted for use with an apparatus for feeding and cutting copy material from a roll in accordance with an original document fed into a contact-type copying machine as disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,645,157.
As shown therein, the copy feeding and cutting apparatus comprises a paper cutting device mounted along a copy paper path of a copying machine. The operation of the cutting device is controlled in accordance with the actuation of a switching device disposed at a predetermined location along an original document feed path of the machine.
The single switch senses the leading edge of an original fed into the machine and in response thereto, actuates the feeding of copy paper along the copy paper path of the machine, which in turn is fed in synchronism with the movement of the original. The leading edges of the original and copy paper reach the nip of a pair of infeed rollers simultaneously and are carried thereby into the machine with the original superimposed on and in registration with the copy paper. In response to the trailing edge of the original passing the single switching device, the cutter is operated to sever from the web a copy sheet of a length equal to the original.
A second switch, preceding the above-mentioned switching device, is provided for determining the width of copy paper to be fed in the copying machine. If the original is of a width great enough to engage the second switch, circuitry is actuated to cause copy paper to be fed from a roll having a width to accommodate the original. If the width of the original is not great enough to engage the second switch, copy paper is fed from a roll of a lesser width.
While the foregoing apparatus has met with considerable success, it does not provide means for precluding consistently the cutting of a thin portion or sliver from the lead end of the roll of copy paper last fed to the cutting station when the alternate roll of copy paper is fed to and severed at the cutting station. These thin slivers cut from the web tend to adhere to the cut sheet fed into the copying machine and result in contaminating the copy sheet developer material, the feeder area and other portions of the apparatus.